A graduate of ENSAE (the French National School of Statistics and Business Administration) and of the Paris Institute of Political Studies (“Sciences Po”), Ara Aprikian began his career in 1990 as a research officer at Horizon Média, a media buying agency, before moving to Médiamétrie in 1993.

He joined the TF1 Group in 1995 within the Marketing department, and was later appointed Deputy Director of Marketing and Programme Planning in 1998, Director of Gameshows and Reality TV in 2001, and then Director of Gameshows, Variety and Entertainment in 2003.

In 2005, he moved to the Canal+ Group, where he headed up the Entertainment unit before launching the Group’s freeview channels D8 and D17 in October 2012. He then became Executive Vice President of the Canal+ group with responsibility for freeview operations, and Chairman of D8 and D17.

In February 2016, Ara Aprikian was appointed Executive Vice President, Content, for the TF1 Group, overseeing all television programmes, acquisitions, production and broadcasting. In September 2019, he took over responsibility for the newly-formed Music and Live Shows business unit, with the subsidiary TF1 Films Production reporting directly to him.